


Look the monster in the eye

by cybergirl614



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU still hunters, Castiel is a hunter, Castiel is human, Drinking, Family, M/M, Oneshot, Random - Freeform, Reminiscing, Sad, Shocked Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 16:55:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7692301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybergirl614/pseuds/cybergirl614
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Bobby talk about old, albeit tenser times before things got grim. Little do they know, things are about to get a thousand times more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look the monster in the eye

**Author's Note:**

> OK, I'm sorry, this is short and probably doesn't make much sense, but... I had to write something because I was gonna sit here staring at the wall until 4 AM otherwise. So...mission accomplished?

“My first thought that night was, goddamnit, if you were anybody else I’d have beat you and told you to get out of my house. But you’re like my son, and you’re family. Family don’t do that.”  
“No sir,” Dean nods, clearing his throat hoarsely. “Family don’t do that.” 

“Now I didn’t think it was natural, per se,” Bobby carries on. “And I guess if Sammy hadn’t stepped in, well, we’d’ve had words—“

“And I’d’ve killed you if you lay a hand on Castiel,” Dean cuts in, still urgent and bitter after all these years. Even after Castiel’s been gone for 11 of them, felled by a Rugaru in Toronto.

Bobby takes another swig of his beer. “Ah well, that was old times. Not…the best a’ times mind you, but you know I’dve done anything for you boys. Even if I didn’t always approve. But then… Sammy got to reading the Bible and printing out all sorts of information at the library, the kid was always good at research—and left it where I’d find it.”   
“Yeah,” Dean sighs. “That’s Sammy.”   
“I might’ve said some things I kinda wish I hadn’t around then,” Bobby continues musing, and Dean begins to think Bobby must’ve downed a couple bottles of whiskey before he came over, to be talking all sentimental like this—“But y’know what? I was damn proud of him before long. Ever since he saved my ass from that vamp in the backwoods of Wisconsin, I couldn’t say he was any different from me or you.”

Dean swells with pride remembering his long-time partner’s heroics that day, and clears his throat gruffly. “Yeah, well, Bobby, you sure you don’t need to turn in?” 

“Shut up, Princess,” Bobby mouths back. “I wasn’t done, now was I?”   
“Sure you were, old-timer,” Dean grins, laughing. 

The truth is, he’s not so sure he can deal with hearing too much more. Not about Cas. Not out of Bobby. Sam would’ve been one thing, the boy had a sentimental streak in him, but gruff old Bobby?   
He must be having an aneurysm or something, to be getting all emotional like that. 

“Look, give me some of that Jack,” Dean says, snagging the bottle from Bobby’s hands. 

“Hey! You idjit, I oughtta—“

“Bobby, really. Go to bed? I’ll check the generator in the barn, OK?”

Grumbling, Bobby leaves the porch they’re sitting on, and Dean hears him climbing the rickety stairs of the house they’re currently squatting in. He drinks a few gulps of the whiskey he had set on the table, and heads out to make sure they won’t wake up without running water in the morning.

In the barn, just as he re-starts the generator, which had stalled, he hears another clunk, like the wind’s picked up. He grabs for his gun in his pocket, and the silver knife he keeps in his beltloop.   
The barn doors blow open, and there, unlike anything eh’s ever seen before, and gdodamn if he hasn’t seen a lot, is a man in a trench coat. Older than he’d ever seen him before, blue eyes just as piercing, but far more ancient and wiser, somehow, Castiel steps forwards.   
But it is Castiel, isn’t it?  
Dean looses a salt-filled round at the spectre. 

He doesn’t squirm, keeps marching forwards, although his expression changes, and he puts his hands out palm-up like he’s showing he’s unarmed.   
What kind of ghost or revenant ever bothered to show it was unarmed? And why for fuck’s sake would a monster of some sort look so…hurt? 

“Dean? Don’t you remember?” Castiel asks. 

Dean fires another few rounds at him, gulping when his gun empties. 

Then he goes forwards with the knife, trying to stab this supposed Castiel.   
It contacts his core, pushing in deep between his ribs and sternum. Dean can feel the blade grind against bones as he slowly relinquishes it, stepping away from whatever the hell this new sort of infallible foe is.  
His heart leaps into his throat when Cas just looks down at the knife for a moment, cracks his knuckles, and then plucks it out. Like some sort of toothpick stuck in the treads of his boot.

Silver and salt both down. Not a vampire, ghost, or demon…  
Dean slowly backs up, feeling for the life of him like this is one helluva way to go, and Cas follows slowly.

“Dean? What’s the matter? Don’t you remember?” Castiel asks softly.

Dean tries to make words, but no sound comes out past the enormous pressure in his throat, like his heart’s trying to crawl out his gullet.

“I---“ a screech of the word finally manifests itself. “I do, Cas. I just…this isn’t you. You’re dead. Eleven years. A—a rugaru.”  
“Dean?” Cas asks softly, faltering back a step, his face growing unbearably sad.

“Yeah?” Dean squeaks out the word.

“Trust me?”

“Look, I’m sorry, Cas, or whatever the hell you are. Y-you know I'd always trust you, but not whatever’s pr—“ 

And Cas steps forward too quickly for the bewildered Dean to dodge, pinning him to the wall he’s slowly backed up to.   
He’s ready to lash out with his nails, head-butt, or any number of things, but suddenly he realizes this so-called-Cas isn’t attacking. He has Dean pinned to the wall with his body weight, but eases up as his hands skate up Dean’s shoulders to his face. Dean’s jaw falls open as fingertips, a touch he’d recognize anywhere, caresses his cheekbones, and he finally dares to look this monster in the eye.   
But somehow he knows, he can see, now, despite everything his instincts are screaming at him, this is no monster.   
“Shh,” Cas says, leaning in a little more to bridge the scant inches between their faces. His lips meet Dean’s, alien yet at once, so familiar. They kiss lightly, then deeper, until Dean remembers his bearings.   
“Why didn’t you come back sooner, Cas?” Dean asks as they break off.   
“Well, we need to talk—“ Cas begins, as the barn doors are thrust open and a horribly flustered Bobby appears between them, lunging forwards with silver.   
“Bobby. Bobby!” Dean yells, trying to step between him and Cas, but Cas is too quick, catching the man by the upper arm, and pressing fingertips to his head.   
“Bobby, relax,” Cas says as the older man nearly goes limp.   
Dean isn’t sure just what Cas just did, and his suspicions begin to perk up just a little.  
“What the hell, Cas?”  
“It’s alright, he’s just asleep. And judging by his systematic stress, he needs some rest.”   
*  
Later, in the livingroom, Bobby wakes up. Dean briefs him on the situation just enough to try to keep him from freaking.  
“C-Cas? What the hell is with that kid?!” Bobby exclaims. 

“Actually, I believe it’s Seraphim now,” Castiel replies as he pokes his head in the doorway.   
“Goddamn you.”  
“Possibly. But for now, once you’ve recovered sufficiently, we have work to do…” Castiel says as he sidles up to Dean on the couch.   
Dean doesn’t know what to expect, but he doesn’t think work with Castiel on the team could possibly be so bad.   
It turns out he’s wrong, of course, but when was the hunting life ever easy?


End file.
